More Music For The Fans Of `Fantasia`

November 01, 1991|By Mary Stevens.

In Hollywood, it`s often said that you`re only as hot as your last project-and in 1937, cartoon movie star Mickey Mouse was lukewarm. His creator, Walt Disney, had just thought of a way to give Mickey`s career a boost when he ran into orchestra conductor Leopold Stokowski at Chasen`s restaurant in Beverly Hills.

As Walt Disney Home Video tells the story, over dinner the men discussed Disney`s interest in a Paul Dukas composition called ``The Sorcerer`s Apprentice`` as the centerpiece of a 10-minute animated ``musical fantasy offering an opportunity for a new type of entertainment.``

Disney explained, ``The picture will be made without dialogue and without sound effects, depending solely on pantomine and descriptive music.`` He wanted to create ``music you could see and pictures you could hear.`` Mickey Mouse would be a logical interpreter, since he was a familiar and friendly character.

Stokowski liked the idea and soon assembled a hand-picked group of studio musicians for the project. But as work progressed, Roy O. Disney, Walt`s brother and the studio`s financial chief, became alarmed by the skyrocketing budget. Instead of spending so much on a two-reel cartoon, why not turn the project into a full-length concert feature comprising many musical numbers?

During a three-week conference in September 1938, Walt Disney, Stokowski, Deems Taylor (a noted composer, music critic and radio personality) and members of the Disney studio team met to select the musical pieces.

Stokowski gave the film its name: ``Fantasia,`` from a musical term for a composition in a fanciful or irregular style. The movie took three years to complete, utilizing the talents of 1,000 artists and technicians, along with a 100-man orchestra. Its final cost was $2.28 million. As the first movie in stereo, it would require theater owners to install special sound equipment at considerable cost.

``Fantasia`` officially premiered Nov. 13, 1940, at the Broadway Theater in New York City-the same theater (formerly called the Colony) where Mickey Mouse had made his debut in the cartoon ``Steamboat Willie`` 12 years earlier. Reaction from most film, art and dance critics was favorable (though highbrow music critics turned up their noses at Disney and Stokowski`s bold experiment). In 1942, Disney received a special technical Academy Award for

``outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of `Fantasia.` `` Stokowski also collected a special Oscar for ``creation of a new form of visualized music.``

Yet because of the war in Europe and the expenses associated with presenting the film in its proper ``Fantasound`` environment, the movie enjoyed only limited theatrical exposure and reaped disappointing box-office receipts.

Undaunted, Walt Disney announced: ``It is our intention to make a version of `Fantasia` every year. We would keep adding to it and change the program just like the ballet does. . . . I think if we put in one new number, almost everyone would go to hear the whole picture again. Then a few months later if we put in another new number, most of them will go again.``

In the 50 years since Disney expressed that wish, ``Fantasia`` has periodically been re-released in edited and revamped forms that,

unfortunately, did not improve upon or even equal the quality of the original film. But now video fans have an opportunity to own ``Fantasia`` as it was first conceived. More than $1.5 million has been spent to restore pristine audio and visual quality to this historic film.

For just 50 days, beginning Friday, the restored anniversary edition of

``Fantasia`` (rated G) is available on tape and laserdisc in both standard and deluxe packages. The standard cassette is priced at $24.99. The Deluxe Collector`s Edition of the cassette ($99.99) comes with a specially produced hologram insignia, a second video entitled ``The Making of a Masterpiece,`` a certificate of authenticity, a commemorative lithograph, a 16-page commemorative booklet and a double compact disc of the orignal ``Fantasia``

soundtrack.

Prices for the standard and deluxe laserdisc versions are $39.99 and $99.99, respectively. The deluxe laserdisc package will contain the same elements of the deluxe cassette package, plus a theatrical trailer from